Sunday, August 21, 2016

Sahlin Studio and Britt-ish Designs have put together an awesome Project Mouse: Around the World collection - 11 countries are represented! You can also purchase the countries individually if you want.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Hello and happy (almost) Wednesday! I interrupt my non-stop viewing of the Olympics to share a page I made with some products that are 50% off for the SOSN (Something Old, Something New) sale at The Lilypad.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Hello and welcome back for another month of Kill My Studio Calico Kit! This is the 9th installment of this series, and in total I have made a whopping (112) layouts. Yay me!
This month I bought the Studio Calico scrapbook main kit, Homespun ($34.99). I also got the Asia stamp and die.

Notes: I have to be honest. I did not like the look of the kit, and even in person it didn't speak to me. Hence, it has been sitting there for the past 5 months. I think the problem was that the side A of the papers didn't appeal to me, yet once I got myself to use it, I found that the side B was much more to my taste. Once I started using the kit, I got into the groove and, while it's still probably my least favorite kit ever, I love the pages I made. Also, the silkscreen is really cool, I love it! And the alpha is awesome, there are so many letters!

Kill my Studio Calico kit is a monthly series I started on my blog to hold myself accountable and use up my kits. You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Status: killed!
I made 9 layouts (1 12"x12", 8 9"x12"), for a total of $34.99, or $3.89/page. I supplemented the kit with several embellishments from my stash, since I really need to put a dent in it. I also used some stamps and cardstock for a couple pages. Here's a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:

Leftovers: the kit is most certainly killed. I have some seasonal items leftover (the wooden "March" and the March transparency, which I likely will use in next year's Project Life album. I also still have lots of letters left.

And here's a roundup of all the projects I made:

And here they are, one by one.

I made this page as soon as I got the kit, and I love it! I only used the silkscreen+paint, alpha stickers, puffy stickers and stamp from the kit. The papers were from my stash, and the flowers are by Wilna Furstenberg. Anyway, I love love love how the page turned out. Alas, after this the kit just sat there, until this week. :) What is really sad is that even though I made this page 5 months ago, I am in the exact same spot at the moment - sigh...

Anyway, the remaining pages were all made this week. I decided to make 9"x12" layouts for my travel album, and I think this kit was a great fit for these photos. I also used several sketches from the Summer of Sketches class that is going on at Studio Calico (enrollment is closed). I don't have a particular plan for the album because I already documented this trip in detail in last year's Project Life album, but since it was the trip of a lifetime and I took hundreds of photos that I love, I have plenty of stories to document in this format.

At first I wasn't sure how to use the rubber animals in the kit, but then I realized I had the perfect way to use the sheep for this title page in my travel album. :) I also used the Asia craft die and the mega date stamp.

The quilt paper was my least favorite in the kit, but it grew on me a bit; here, I used it for the background and covered it up with the vellum, and also added some foam dots in between to make the background even fainter. I love the end result! Then I piled on the embellishments - all from my stash except for the rubber animals, which I thought worked great on this page about food. :)

I love the colors of this page! (the blue embellishments and the "adventure" stamp are from my stash). This wood paper was my favorite this month.

On this page I documented a few of my breakfasts on this trip. I created a grid using some patterned paper and the transparencies that are in the kit. The fabric patch and vellum alpha are from my stash. I also used embellishments from the Finch add on.

I used the silkscreen on a piece of the gray cardstock with two shades of green paint. This screen is very sticky so it tore off some of the cardstock, but I covered it up with the kraft sticker. I added a few embellishments from the Finch add on and from my stash.

I had fun making this page. I used the transparencies to ground my photos.

I love how this page turned out! I used a journaling card (which I punched out and cut up) and some stickers from the Pocket documenter add on.

And here is the last page I made to use up the last few scraps (background cardstock is from my stash). This page didn't photograph very well, but I love how it turned out. I used some trim from my stash to match the colors in the photos. I used the silkscreen on vellum (which works well because it's very slick so the screen doesn't stick too much) with silver paint. Those transparencies from the kit went a long way, I loved using them!

And that's it for this month! If you have any questions, please leave a comment and let me know!

Monday, August 1, 2016

Hello and happy August! As has been my tradition since January, I made a couple of hybrid pages using the digital releases from Studio Calico for the Young at Heart August kits. They are both 8.5"x11". From what I've seen of the kits, this is going to be a good month!

To make this page, I used these digital products:

The background was made repeating one of the journal cards from this set, and the hearts are cut out from another of the cards. I recolored the labels to match.

I stamped the title using an old 6x8 alpha stamp called Oliver, and since the colors turned out to be brighter than I expected (I blame it on the matte photo paper, which is awesome for printing, less awesome for stamping), I added some vellum to the bottom of the page to tone it down. I love the result!